Women, It’s Time to Create a Rosier Financial Picture for Your Retirement

Published on July 11, 2017

In spite of achievements in in the workplace and in education, gender gap pay issues and other factors still point to women being at greater risk for a less financially secure retirement than men. And, given that women typically have a longer lifespan than men, this does not bode well for their retirement years.
The 17th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey of Workers, conducted by Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, revealed that because of the gender pay gap, women can have an even greater retirement savings gap. Add that women are still the ones more likely to take time off for parenting or for caregiving, they lose income, benefits and the ability to save adequately for retirement as a result.

Job training and keeping up with your skills will help you remain competitive in the job market but there’s the savings gap to address. That said—and we’ve said it before—it’s never too late to start saving by opening an IRA; and if you are a woman who is savvy about certain alternative assets, you might be able to close that savings gap with a self-directed IRA.

A good tool to use to give you an idea of your savings goals is to use an online calculator to estimate what you’ll need down the road. There are many to choose from and if you are working with a financial planner or other trusted advisor, he or she may also have tools to help figure out how much you’ll need to save in order to meet your retirement goals.

Being disciplined about funding your self-directed retirement plan is important, of course, and factoring the amount you’re saving into a monthly household budget may help keep you on track.

Since self-directed retirement plans allow for a broad array of nontraditional investments—such as real estate, precious metals, agricultural commodities, natural resources, and secured and unsecured loans among them—think about what you already know and understand and consider including these in your tax-advantaged self-directed plan. Rather than relying on stocks, bonds and mutual funds, these alternative, non-publicly traded assets enable you to build a more diverse retirement portfolio, with the potential to yield more aggressive returns. You can read more about what these plans allow here.

As a full-service plan administrator, Next Generation Services executes your transactions instructions, holds the assets, and handles all the paperwork and filing that are required by the IRS. Our professional team will do a thorough transaction review. And, we’re here to answer any questions you might have about self-direction as a retirement wealth-building strategy.

Depending on your investment knowledge and comfort level in terms of making all your own investment decisions, self-direction could be a great way for you, the working woman, to boost your retirement savings; this is especially true if you are already investing in certain assets outside of your existing retirement plan. Want to know more? Peruse our website or contact the helpful professionals at Next Generation Services at Info@NextGenerationTrust.com or 888.857.8058.